


Rising Sun

by florahowell



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Dark, Depressing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mentions of Pedophilia, Murder, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 19:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17883509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahowell/pseuds/florahowell
Summary: When Levi has to investigate a murder case in one of the capital's fancy brothels, he finds something he hadn't been expecting to find there.





	Rising Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Attention! Even though nor child abuse neither pedophilia is explicitly mentioned in the story, both are implied, and for some might be disturbing!

“Sir, excuse me, sir?” 

Levi was awakened by a familiar voice. He sighed and slowly opened his eyes, squinting at the unexpectedly bright, early light shining in through the tall windows. He didn’t remember when he’d fallen asleep, but it must have been for a while, as the sun was already almost up. He sat up in his chair and peeled a piece of paper off of his face. Seeing all the unfished paperwork on his desk in front of him, he heaved another, deeper sigh. “Come in,” he said as the pounding on his door grew louder. 

Armin entered the room cautiously. “Sorry for bothering you so early, sir, but there’s something I think you should know about.” 

When he saw the bunch of papers in his hand, Levi almost sent him out right away. “What is it?” he asked in a particularly unenthusiastic voice. 

“I-,” the boy started hesitantly and glimpsed at a long paragraph on the sheet of paper on the top. “An upper-class merchant has been murdered in one of the brothels in the center this night. He was a member of the new council. Mr. Pritchett.” 

“That repulsing fat one, huh?” Levi tilted his head slightly. “Sounds like the problem of the Military Police to me. Or are we expected to do their job as well? Are they now so incompetent that they can’t even catch some drunkard without help anymore?”

“Well, they did have some problems with the suspect, that’s why I thought it would be the best if you helped them out personally. They say one of the girls did it.”

“I can’t say that I blame her, but I still don’t see why I should care about this crap. Could you get to the point, Arlert?”

“It’s one of the brothels on your uncle’s list, sir,” Armin said eventually. “Please, take a look at the reports. They are quite unusual.”

“Alright.” The captain massaged his forehead wearily. “Get me a horse or a carriage or something. I’ll look into those shitty papers on the way.”

“Would you like me to come with you, sir?” The boy handed the stack of reports to his superior. 

“No, I’ll be fine.” Levi stood up and reached for his jacket hanging on the back of his chair. “Tell the others I’ll be back as soon as possible.” 

***

His carriage stopped in front of a small building in a quiet alley in the town center. It fitted into the row of houses around it perfectly and didn’t look like a brothel at all. Quite the contrary, it was pretty fancy with its pure white walls and golden windows. Levi wondered how Kenny had been let into such a posh place even once. There was an MP guarding the entrance, and two more inside, sitting at one of the round black tables. They didn’t really seem to be working.

The bar occupied the whole ground floor, which was now almost empty. Besides the two MPs, only one more person was present. An elderly woman with bright-red hair and heavy, colorful makeup on her face was standing behind the bar, washing some glasses. The expression on her face was calm if not bored. She definitely didn’t look like someone who had been shocked by a murder in the near past. Either she already got used to such affairs or was very good at concealing her real feelings, Levi couldn’t decide. Maybe, she just didn’t care at all. He nodded to the MPs curtly and stepped straight to the woman – who was probably the owner of the place – being sure that she can provide him with more valuable information that his useless colleagues. He wanted to get over this whole thing as quick as possible. 

“Good morning,” he greeted the woman, who seemingly wasn’t too happy about his arrival.

“I already told everything to your mates,” she said in a deep, rusty voice. “Just take that devilish girl and go, let me get back to ma’ business. And don’t look at me with those sharp, judgy eyes, sir. When I say business, I mean my bar. This is a bar, no more. I already told that to your…”

“The official description of this place is none of my problem, I’m here because apparently there was a murder in your… bar tonight. Could you please tell me what happened?” Levi tried to minimalize the impatience in his voice.

“I didn’t see nothing, sir, believe me. I already told your mates. I was right here working as I do, and suddenly I hear a scream from one of the rooms upstairs – from one of the store-rooms. Some men go up and a dead body is lying right next to the girl. The men go in and soon they’re rolling down the stairs – they were lucky, though, they survived. That’s all I saw, I swear.”

“The girl?” Levi raised an eyebrow slightly.

“Just one of my cleaning girls – always knew she was a mental one. There were similar issues with her mother, you know.” The woman shook her head disapprovingly.

“Her mother?”

“I knew her. She was one of my waitresses. She was a pretty one; blonde hair, green eyes – that’s rare, very rare. But she was instable. So instable she took her own life half a year ago or so. Leaving me with that crazy kid. I just knew she’ll cause me trouble one day.”

“And what does the crazy kid say? Did she admit the murder?”

“She said nothing at all, sir. She doesn’t talk much in general. Plus, she didn’t leave that room since then, and I wouldn’t go in for the devil’s sake. After your mates listened to all the witnesses, they agreed and said they’d rather wait for you.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Levi scoffed. “Which room are we talking about exactly?”

“First door on the left, sir, right after the stairs. I would take some kind of weapon if I were you.” The woman was already reaching for the riffle under the counter.

“I’ll be fine, thanks,” he waved her off and headed upstairs. On the way he made sure to flash a scornful look at those worthless morons from the military police, sitting at the table and sipping on their free whisky like they didn’t have anything else to do. He was sure that one day he’ll be the only one working in the whole goddamn military.

When he entered the room, Levi thought he’d walked through the wrong door for a second. The place didn’t seem like a store-room at all. Just like the whole building it was small but pretty neat. The white walls were decorated with expensive-looking paintings, and the frame of the wide, queen-sized bed in the middle matched the golden windows. Thanks to the closed, black drapes and the broken chandelier, the room was almost completely dark, so it took a moment for Levi to recognize the small, skinny thing, sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed. He left the door open to let some light in and carefully walked closer.

The girl was hugging her white, bony knees with her blood-stained hands and was staring at the floor blankly. When Levi stepped in front of her, she glanced up with wide, green eyes. “I’m sorry,” she cried silently. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to kill him. I’m so sorry.”

The captain almost took a step back. The girl was wearing nothing else than a pair of pearly white underwear, that had the same color as her skin, and that exposed too much of her body for her age. Her long, dark hair framed a ridiculously young face. “This is a brat,” thought Levi. “This is a fucking brat.” He felt his stomach turn and had to swallow back some bile. He couldn’t even move for a second. He didn’t remember the last time when something had managed to shock him for real. He’d expected to see a somewhat young girl in the room – definitely too young for that disgusting, old Pritchett –, but not this. Not a fucking child.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I didn’t want to hurt the others either, I swear.”

Levi crouched down and tried to find his voice. “You didn’t?”

The girl shook her head. 

He took one of the black blankets from the bed and put it over her shoulders. “What’s your name?” he asked in soft voice.

“Kyra,” she whispered and drew the cover tighter about herself.

“I’m Levi,” he continued calmly. “Now, Kyra, will you tell me what happened here? But before you speak, I must inform you that you can only tell me the truth, understand? If you lie, I’ll know.”

The girl nodded. “I didn’t want to kill him, sir, I swear. I didn’t want to hurt the others either.”

“I see that you didn’t want to hurt anyone, and I believe you. But you have to tell me the whole story, otherwise I won’t be able to help you out here. You don’t have to talk about everything in… detail. Just tell me what happened with that man, alright?”

“I think I stabbed him,” she croaked. 

Levi looked around to find anything that could have been used as a weapon, and his eyes stuck at the remains of one of the chandelier’s lampshades. “With those?” he jerked his head in the direction of the shattered glass on the floor.

The girl nodded again. “But I don’t… I don’t remember breaking the lamp or killing him. The first thing I recall is that my hands are covered in blood, and I stand next to his…,” her voice broke, and silent tears streamed down her cheeks. 

Levi was just kneeling there, staring at her quietly. He didn’t know what to say or what to do. He wanted to point out that using the shattered glass of the chandelier as a weapon had been a nice move, but he swallowed that. He wasn’t really good at comforting people in general – let alone crying little girls –, and at that moment he felt worse about that than usual. He really wanted to make her feel at least a bit better. 

But he couldn’t do that. It was something he never learned to do. So, he waited. He waited until the girl seemed calm enough to answer another question. He still felt guilty asking it, though. “And what is the last thing you remember before all that?” his voice came out way raspier than he’d expected.

The girl looked at him with sheer terror in her eyes. “I told them that I don’t want this. I told them that I don’t want to do it, I swear. I told them.”

Levi tried his best to keep an indifferent face, but he wasn’t sure if his attempt was successful. He could feel his loathing becoming more and more visible. 

Kyra took a deep breath to calm herself as tears started to well up in her eyes again. “I just didn’t want him to touch me,” she muttered at last. 

“Alright, that’ll be enough,” he stopped her. He didn’t want to hear any more than that. He felt a barely resistible urge to go back downstairs, get that riffle, he’d been offered earlier, and empty it into the old woman’s head, saving only a couple of bullets for the useless idiots from the military police.

“Will you lock me up now, sir?” she looked at him with wide eyes. “That’s what happens to criminals, right?”

“You’re not the criminal here, brat” he muttered absently. “What did you say? How old are you?”

“I didn’t. I’ll be twelve in two months.”

“Twelve, huh?” he echoed as he was trying to do the math in his head. “Were you born here?”

The girl nodded.

“Your mum-,” Levi started, but he cut the sentence in the middle. The girl’s deceased mother was probably not the best topic to bring up right now. He didn’t want to upset her even more, but he still had questions, he needed an answer for. “Was your mother working here?”

The girl nodded again. 

“Was she a waitress?”

She shook her head. 

“I could have guessed,” thought Levi while rolling his eyes internally. “Do you remember someone visiting her regularly? Maybe someone who wanted to see you as well? A tall man in a long, black coat and a bowler hat, with a particularly unfriendly and aggressive look on his face?”

It took a few seconds for the girl to process the information and build an image of the man in her head. “No, sir,” she shook her head. “I don’t recall.”

“Fine, nevermind. We’ll get back to this later,” he massaged his forehead with two fingers. “Now, listen up, brat, I have an offer for. You can stay here and see if those pricks are even able to catch you. You could probably escape and avoid jail for now, but I can’t do much for you in that case. If you run away, you’re alone. The other option would be to come with me, join one of the new fancy military training programs, and continue what you’ve stared today.”

“Killing people?” 

“Yeah, but this time it’d be legal.” Seeing the poorly concealed concern on the girl’s face, Levi realized that he could have put all this in a nicer way. “So, what do you say?”

The girl looked puzzled. “I don’t want to stay here.”

“You couldn’t stay here, even if you wanted to. This place won’t be standing here by this evening. Not in its current form at least.”

The girl’s giant eyes widened even more. “How much people do I have to kill if I become a soldier?”

“A lot,” he said calmly. “But they are going to attack you in a very different way. Plus, you can learn to kill them only if you want to kill them.”

The girl nodded. She was blinking at the floor for a few seconds, then looked up at the man again. “And why would you do that for me?” she asked carefully.

“I’m your fairy godmother,” the captain sighed with a straight face, and for a moment he was sure that the girl almost managed a smile. “Anyway, don’t worry, I won’t touch you. No-one will. And if someone tries, one way or another, you’ll know how to prevent it.”

“Alright, I’ll go,” she decided and stood up with as much confidence as she could gather.

“Fine,” Levi nodded. “Go, put on some clothes and bring your stuff if you have any. Wash your hands, too. We don’t want to scare the weaklings from the military police even more.”


End file.
